


i'm tired of being patient so let's pick up the pace

by LadyAlice101



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pol!Jon, Post Series, and also makes it jonsa heavy, and i'd planned to add heaps of loving smut, bc this way i can make everything that's happened in canon make SENSE, begrudgingly canon compliant, but it didn't really work, jon getting the recognition he DESERVES, sansa getting the apologises she DESERVES, so instead i added a SHIT TON of emotional fulfilment, this was supposed to be lighthearted but then canon happened and i can't ignore it, well not begrudgingly, which obvi i live for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 23:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18788140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAlice101/pseuds/LadyAlice101
Summary: “Alright, then,” Arya says, “your advice is to tell him that I don’t want to marry him and I don’t want him to be the Lord of Storm’s End, but I do want him to be with me so he should give all of that up to spend his life with me and nothing else. And to wear a pretty dress while I do it.”Sansa purses her lips, obviously distressed with the way Arya framed it. Wryly, she says, “Well, it couldn’t make it any worse, could it?”-Sansa and Jon help Arya and Gendry get together. Arya returns the favour.(Mostly this is a gratuitous discussion of feelings between everyone bc the show thinks that's unnecessary for some reason but I DO NOT)





	i'm tired of being patient so let's pick up the pace

**Author's Note:**

> anyway i still firmly believe in pol!jon but boy will i be mad as hell if it isn't true 
> 
> there's lots of weird shit happening this season so pls enjoy me taking what they intended and making it BETTER 
> 
> unbeta'd

“Sansa!” Arya shouts as she slams the door open.

Jon and Sansa jump in their seats and look up to her from their place before the hearth, startled.

Sansa stands immediately. “What’s happened? Are you okay?”

Arya glares over to Jon, whose brows are furrowed in worry. Arya jerks her head at him.

Sansa raises a brow. “You want Jon to leave?”

Jon stands then, too, concerned. “What’s wrong, Arya?”

Arya groans, then flays her arm back behind her. “Jon, _go._ I need to speak with Sansa!”

Sansa claps her hands in front her. Arya’s grateful for their worry, she _is,_ but could they just lighten up a little?

“If something’s wrong, Jon should stay -.”

“Jon can’t help,” Arya interrupts, crossing her arms and tapping her foot hurriedly.

He frowns and his face turns down in irritation. “Well, now - . . .”

Arya rolls her eyes skyward. “It has to do with a boy, okay? Get _out,_ Jon.”

Jon’s eyes immediately widen, and Arya can spot red high on his cheeks. He stumbles through acquiescence, then reaches over to clasp Sansa’s hand briefly. Arya can’t help but avert her eyes; there is nothing untoward about the action, they don’t even step closer to each other, but the action is intimate enough that she feels she should give them privacy.

It lasts only a moment, though, and then Jon is walking towards her uncomfortably. “Arya, I should warn you -”

“You’re not my father,” she interrupts, because she’d expected this.

His eyebrows knit together in earnestness. “Well, no, but I -”

“Don’t worry about it,” Arya says, brusquely, because why isn’t he just _leaving,_ she wants to talk to Sansa godsdammit, “Sansa will keep me in line, I’m sure.”

Arya has no intention of that being true, because she won’t be limited, but it will placate Jon. He nods, as expected, and then leaves with one last glance over his shoulder.

Arya sighs dramatically, then flops down into the seat Jon had just been in, splaying her arms over the armrests and spreading her legs wide. Her head hits the back of the chair.

She hears Sansa sit down much more gracefully.

Sansa holds her tongue for several moments, and Arya doesn’t speak either, because this felt like a good idea five minutes ago but now it seems vaguely inappropriate and altogether embarrassing. Eventually, though, Sansa has to ask, and it’s a much more insightful question than Arya had anticipated.

“I thought that you and Gendry had – you know – before the battle. What’s changed?”

Arya groans and covers her eyes with her hands.

“He asked me to _marry_ him, Sansa.”

Arya peeks at Sansa through her fingers. Her sister’s face is turned down into a confused frown.

“Well, what’s the problem then?” Sansa questions.

Arya groans again and flings her hands from her face in frustration. What’s the problem, Sansa asks? The problem is that Arya has _no idea_ what do about the fact that she said no! She and Gendry hadn’t spoken again before she went South to help kill Cersei and Daenerys, and then he’d avoided her for the two weeks she’s been back, and now he’s going to Storm’s End without her and she . . . well. She’d told him the truth when he’d originally asked her to go with him. She _doesn’t_ want to marry him and become the Lady Baratheon of Storm’s End . . . but she wouldn’t be _opposed_ to spending the rest of her life with him, here in Winterfell perhaps, or maybe wandering around Westeros, or Essos, or whatever is west of Westeros.

Oh, who’s she kidding? She _wants_ that.

“You don’t want to marry him,” Sansa says, less a question and more a statement.

Arya turns her lips down. “Marriage isn’t for me,” she reiterates. “I don’t want to be a lady of a castle with a husband I tend to.”

Sansa looks away from her.

“Shit, Sansa, I didn’t mean -” Arya sighs. “Seriously, Sansa, I just meant that that’s not for me. Fuck, I’m bollocksing this up too, aren’t I?”

Sansa gives her a small smile, sadder than Arya wishes it were.

“It’s alright,” Sansa says, and Arya can tell from her tone that she does understand. That doesn’t maker her feel any better, though. “So, you don’t want to marry him, but you do want something?”

Arya nods.

“Well, I’m sure if I told Jon he had to, he would make Gendry stay here.”

Arya screws up her nose. “No, don’t do that. He was so happy when he got that Lordship.”

Sansa sighs in exasperation. “Oh, Arya, for someone who claims to always be able to tell apart a lie from the truth, you really are quite dense sometimes.”

Arya straightens her back, an indignant _oi_ falling from her lips, but Sansa pays her no mind.

“He doesn’t care about the Lordship for the title and castle, Arya, he wanted it because he thinks that he now has something to _offer_ you.”

Arya’s mouth snaps shut as her brain stutters.

That doesn’t make any sense! When he’d come to her he’d been so happy to tell her about what Daenerys had given him, and he’d kissed her and said -

 _Oh_ shit. The first thing he’d done was ask her to come with him. He’d gotten down on one knee and told her he loved her and he’d told her that none of it meant anything if he couldn’t have her by his side.

Oh, she really can be dense sometimes.

“I told him no,” Arya says, a little desperately, her eyes wide as she looks at her sister. “When he asked me to marry him. Sansa, how do I fix that?”

Sansa’s gaze softens. “Just talk to him, Arya, tell him the truth, whatever that is.”

Arya groans and flops back into her chair once more. “That’s it?” she says incredulously. “How do I – I don’t know, use my feminine wiles to make him forgive me?”

Sansa stifles a laugh behind her hand. “That’s not a good basis for a relationship Arya, even I know that.”

Before Arya can open her mouth and ask exactly what Sansa means by _even I know that,_ Sansa speaks again, a teasing glint in her eye.

“Of course, I’m happy to make you a beautiful dress and dress you up like a pretty little lady.”

Arya rolls her eyes.

“But I’m not sure what other advice I can off you,” Sansa finishes, much more soberly. “I don’t know how to help.”

“But you – you’re _Sansa._ You’re a _lady._ Of course you can help!”

“I’ve not exactly had myself a great romance.” Sansa explains patiently. “Or a romance, at all really.”

Arya opens her mouth then closes it again, confused. “What about Jon?”

Sansa blinks rapidly, then blushes, bright red. “What about him?” she mutters, turning back to her sewing with intense focus.

Arya looks at her curiously. Surely she’s not misunderstood their relationship so thoroughly? She’s seen the way they look at each other, the longing on the face, the desire in their eyes; she’s heard talk from the smallfolk, she’s _seen_ them steal time to be with each other. Arya has a hard time believing that it’s all innocent. Sure, they’re not married, but Arya had assumed that that would be a short-lived state. But Sansa’s demeanor suggests otherwise.

“I’m confused,” Arya admits. “I thought that you two would be announcing your betrothal any day now.”

If it were so far from the truth, Arya’s sure she would have been met with a vehement refusal. Instead, Sansa sighs deeply. “No. We’re not – he doesn’t . . . it’s not going to happen for us.”

“Why not?” Arya demands.

Sansa sighs again, then rubs her forehead with her fingers. “We were supposed to be talking about you,” Sansa says wearily, pasting a brittle smile on her face.

Arya is determined to come back to this subject, but for now she’ll let Sansa change it; Arya was the one who brought it up, anyway, and she wouldn’t have, if she’d known it was a touchy subject.

“Alright, then,” Arya says, “your advice is to tell him that I don’t want to marry him and I don’t want him to be the Lord Storm’s End, but I _do_ want him to be with me so he should give all of that up to spend his life with me and nothing else. And to wear a pretty dress while I do it.”

Sansa purses her lips, obviously distressed with the way Arya framed it. Wryly, she says, “Well, it couldn’t make it any worse, could it?”

Arya narrows her eyes. She’d been about to apologize for saying it so derisively, when truthfully she is grateful that Sansa is helping her at all, but Sansa’s tone makes Arya’s eye twitch in annoyance.

“Oh, so it’s been helpful with you and Jon then?” Arya snaps.

Sansa smacks her lips together then grits her teeth.

“Arya,” Sansa says, dangerously, angrily, “I don’t want to talk about this ever again.”

Arya stands, her fingers twitching as she turns away to stalk to the door. Her fingers are on the handle before she hears a sharp intake of breath, and a shuddering exhale.

Arya pauses, biting her lip, then turns back to her sister.

Sansa stiffens, hastily wiping her cheek, but she doesn’t look at Arya. Arya hesitates, then returns to bend down and press a soft kiss to her sister’s cheek.

“I don’t know what happened between you and Jon,” Arya murmurs, “but I do know he loves you.”

“Not in the way I love him,” Sansa whispers, wiping her cheek again.

“ _Sansa_ ,” Arya sighs, her brow furrowing and her heart breaking, “he really does.”

 

* * *

 

 

Arya spends all night wondering if she’s going to meddle with Jon and Sansa’s love life, because it gives her an excuse to pointedly _not_ think about Gendry. She needs more information, she decides. And Sansa obviously isn’t going to be forthcoming with it, so she’ll try Jon instead.

After she breaks her fast, Arya finds Jon out in the courtyard, where is talking with Davos. The conversation looks intense, with both of them gesturing towards the construction happening on the battlements.

As soon as Jon catches sight of Arya though, he dismisses Davos, which is a good thing too because Arya doesn’t plan to hold her tongue.

“Why won’t you marry Sansa?” Arya demands as soon as she reaches him, crossing her arms.

Jon’s eyes widen, then narrow in self-righteous anger. “Arya,” he hisses, “it’s none of your business.”

“I don’t care,” she says, crossing her arms. Jon must recognize the stubborn look on her face, because he grabs her arm and drags her over to a free space by a wall of the castle, looking over his shoulder all the while.

“Did she say something?” Jon asks, his voice lowered, eyes looking out over the crowd. No one spares them a glance.

Arya can’t help but scoff at his question. Gods, but they’re a pathetic pair. Where’s the honesty?

She purses her lips and realizes she should cut them a bit of slack. After all, she’s in the exact same situation as them, and she at least doesn’t exactly have to deal with the _issues_ Jon and Sansa do.

“Not exactly,” Arya admits, taking a softer approach. They deserve that much; she owes them that much. “But I know she wants to marry you. There’s nothing stopping you.”

Jon sighs and turns his gaze down to Arya. He’s heartbroken, she realizes. What happened between them?

“It’s not that simple, little sister,” Jon says miserably. “Your sister – I really hurt her, Arya. I gave her home away. I laid with Daenerys. I went south with her. I was going to s _tay_ south with her.”

“Yes, but you did that to protect our home.”

Jon sighs again and rubs in nose. Sansa does that, too, when she’s stressed. “Aye, but look at it from her perspective. I didn’t tell her anything. For all she knew, I truly had given away Winterfell and the North because I was in love with Daenerys. And the things I _said . . ._ ”

“But she figured it out,” Arya stresses, because she still doesn’t quite understand why this is still a big issue.

“Aye, she did, but we didn’t talk about it, Arya,” Jon explains. “She figured it out from something _Daenerys_ said, not something I said. She may have suspected, but she couldn’t have _known,_ not truly. And then the battle was over, we’d won, and I pledged to not only go south to fight against Cersei by Daenerys’ side, but then I promised to marry Daenerys afterwards. I promised Daenerys that I would never come North again. I did all of that without ever consulting Sansa. I did all of that without her knowing _why._ ”

“But to protect her,” Arya repeats dumbly.

“ _Arya,_ ” Jon stresses, “listen to me. I don’t how much Sansa told you about what happened to her . . .”

“Only a little,” Arya admits.

“She spent _years_ being lied to, being used as a pawn, as nothing more than the key to the North. And I promised her that I would be different, and she _trusted_ me to be. She _trusted_ me. And I know that she knows now that I never betrayed that trust, but for _months_ she thought I had. And I made her believe it. I said things, I did things, I undermined her and took her power away in her own home, and I made her think that I did it because I believed in Daenerys.”

Arya thinks she might understand now.

Jon smiles at her sadly. “She needs time to forgive me. If she even can. And I won’t ever blame her if she can’t, and you shouldn’t either.”

Arya presses her lips together. It’s clear that there’s an obstacle that these two have to overcome, one that Arya couldn’t fix even if she tried. She’ll leave them be – for now.

Jon puts his hand on her shoulder, a tender look in his eye. “Gendry is set to leave in a week. Don’t wait until then to talk to him,” he advises. She raises a brow. “Sansa told me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Gods, you two are definitely ending up together.”

“Seriously, Arya,” Jon says, ignoring her. “Just be honest with him.”

“This is weird,” Arya decides. “Let’s stop talking about my love life now.”

Jon scoffs then shoves her gently. “ _You_ came to _me_!”

“Whatever,” she mutters.

Jon’s face lights up unexpectedly. Sansa, Arya thinks. Except when she turns around, it isn’t.

“Gendry!” Jon calls out, waving the man over. Gendry looks over at the two of them, an unfinished axe in hand, then cautiously starts to make his way over to them. Jon leans down to whisper in her ear, “This is payback for making me talk about Sansa in the middle of the courtyard.”

Gendry looks at the two of them cautiously, though he avoids Arya’s eye. He stops a few paces before them, and looks only at Jon.

“Yes, Your Grace?” he asks quietly, obviously uncomfortable.

Jon slaps a hand on Gendry’s shoulder. “My sister was just telling me that she’s been looking for you,” Jon says, grinning at Arya.

Arya grits her teeth, then gives Jon a forced smile. “Obviously I wasn’t looking hard enough.”

Jon shrugs. “No worries!” he says. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Before you go,” Arya says, “I’m _also_ looking for Sansa. I have _so_ much to talk to her about. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”

Jon’s smile drops from his face, very quickly replaced with a glare.

“No,” he says harshly, “I don’t.”

The siblings glare at each other for a several seconds, and awkwardly Gendry interrupts, pointing his axe towards the forge, “Uh, should I go?”

Jon forces a smile, though it’s such a poor attempt Arya rolls her eyes.

“No, no, I’ve got things to do.”

He leaves without any more fanfare, probably going to seek out Davos, if the man is still hanging around after Arya interrupted them.

Arya rocks on her heels, pressing her hands together behind her back.

“You were looking for me?” Gendry ventures after a few moments.

“Uh, yeah,” she says, even though it isn’t true. She doesn’t say anything for a few moments. “And I found you. So . . . bye.”

She turns her heel and starts to walk away.

Gendry sighs behind her then quietly says to himself, “Why did I hope . . . so stupid.”

Arya stops immediately. Hesitantly, she turns back around, suddenly feeling extremely guilty. In the whirlwind of her own confusing emotions, she’d forgotten to take into account exactly what her rejection might have made him feel.

He’s turned back to the forge and is already starting his way back by the time Arya realizes she needs to move.

She runs to catch up to him, then swings in front of him. He comes to an abrupt halt as she blocks his way.

“Gendry, I . . .”

He looks down at her, no hope and all disappointment.

“Look, it doesn’t matter, Arya,” Gendry says, face heavy. “Just . . . I’ll be gone, soon, you won’t have to worry about me getting in your way. Excuse me, My Lady.”

He goes to step around her, but Arya grabs his bicep and stops him. “I didn’t give you permission,” she says, teasing, though her lips pull down in dissatisfaction.

What would Sansa do, Arya panics, what would she say?

Well, she certainly wouldn’t kiss a suitor in the middle of the courtyard in broad daylight, so Arya decides that that’s probably the best way to go.

“Fuck it,” she decides, then yanks him down to press a way-too-hot-and-heavy-for-public kiss to him.

He’s shocked, at first, but then his axe clatters to the ground and his giant hands cup her tiny neck and there are hollers and cheers from people around them but Arya doesn’t stop kissing him until she wants to.

Gendry looks absolutely gob-smacked as she releases him.

“I don’t want to be Lady of Storm’s End,” Arya warns, pointing a finger at his chest, “and I don’t want to marry you. Though I guess I could compromise on that point if it meant a lot to you, but I’m _not_ becoming Arya Baratheon so don’t even think about it.”

He’s looking down at her, obviously dazed and unsure what she’s saying, but attentive nonetheless.

“Right,” he says, a little stunned.

“But I – well. I understand if Storm’s End is what you want. But if you don’t care about the castle, then I want to . . . gods, I love you too you big idiot, so lets figure out something that works for us both.”

A huge smile breaks across Gendry’s face. “You love me, huh?” he asks, all smug.

Arya immediately bristles. “Don’t forget all the other shit I said, okay, because Sansa says that communication is important.”

Gendry slings his arm around her waist then tugs her to him. He leans down to smack another kiss to her, then says, “I don’t really care about Storm’s End. I wanted to be worthy of you.”

“A castle doesn’t make you worthy,” Arya tells him.

“That castle is all I have,” he warns. “I don’t have anything else except the clothes on my back.”

Arya pauses, and looks around the courtyard of Winterfell. This is all Sansa and Jon’s, she thinks. Winterfell belongs to them. The North belongs to them. All Arya has is the Stark name and siblings that would give her anything. She doesn’t have any saved coins, the only clothes she has are ones Sansa makes her, and more often than not she’ll catch and make her own meals.

“Neither do I,” she says, and shrugs.

Gendry laughs in delight, then kisses her again.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

“We can stay in Winterfell for now,” Arya ventures. “Wait a little longer for everything to settle. Help rebuild the castle. But I don’t want to stay forever.”

Gendry lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t either. It’s too cold.”

Arya laughs. “So not going North of the Wall, then?”

Gendry shudders dramatically. “Been there, done that. Nothing to do up there, you know.”

“Well,” Arya says slyly, smirking, gripping the collar of his shirt, “except keep each other warm.”

He groans. “Trust me, I don’t need an excuse for that.”

A thrill shoots through Arya. She glances around the courtyard. People have quickly moved on from their display, and now there’s not a single person looking at them. They could go the forge, Arya thinks, but they’ve been there before. If they’re going to go somewhere, might as well be her chambers so she can get him completely naked and maybe do some truly unspeakable things to him and not worry that someone might walk in.

“Come on,” Arya decides, tugging on his hand to take him inside.

“Where are we going?” he asks, a lazy grin on his face.

“To keep each other warm.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sansa startles as her door slams open without a knock.

Wide eyed, she attempts to muster a glare at her intruder, though she quickly drops it when she realizes it’s only her sister. “Arya? Are you - ?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”

Arya pulls the door closed behind her. There’s red high on her cheeks, her hair is messy – messier than usual – her lips look well-kissed, and her clothes look even more unkempt than normal.

“I spoke to Jon,” Arya says, which is unexpected.

“Oh?” Sansa quips, though she’s confused. “And he did this to you, then?”

Sansa waves about Arya’s general appearance, a teasing smile on her face, because that’s obviously not true but Sansa isn’t sure why Arya is here to talk about _Jon_ when she’s obviously made some headway with Gendry.

“What? Ew, _no._ ”

“What happened with Gendry?” Sansa asks, because she’s impatient and invested.

A slight blush appears high on Arya’s cheeks, which – well, Sansa doesn’t think she’s _ever_ seen Arya blush, even when they were children, even when just last night they were talking about Arya’s having . . . Arya engaging in . . .

There are some things better left unthought, Sansa decides.

“We worked it out,” Arya says vaguely.

“Well what does _that_ mean?”

“It _means_ ,” Arya says impatiently, crossing over to Sansa’s desk, where she’d been sat going over the food stores again, and pours herself a cup of water, “that everything’s fine. We’re . . . it’s fine.”

“So you’re . . . together,” Sansa clarifies. She’s not sure why Arya is so hesitant to disclose information, if only because she’d been the one to come to Sansa initially. Arya is a very private person, even from her family, and Sansa doesn’t begrudge her that because she is, too. But . . . well, Sansa thought that because Arya had come to her for advice, she might be going to tell Sansa the outcome.

Arya shrugs. “Something like that.”

Arya falls into the chair opposite Sansa’s, the one Jon sits in if they’re working together, so Sansa takes her own seat slowly.

“But I came here about Jon, “ Arya says again, then takes a large drink of water.

Sansa licks her lips slowly, unsure how to respond. She doesn’t want to talk about Jon. No, it’s not that; she’s happy to talk about Jon in relation to Winterfell; she’s even happy to talk _to_ Jon about all manner of things.

Jon rejoining her at nights, in her solar, or in front of the fire at her bedchambers, has been one of Sansa’s favourite things since the war ended. She looks forward to the evenings, not because it gives her a moment to rest, but because she and Jon can sit and talk and just be themselves, not the King in the North and Lady of Winterfell, not two people who had been at odds for so long, not two people who’s relationship had been split apart under the strain of politics.

They’re rebuilding themselves and each other, stone by stone, but she and Jon have yet to properly address the very real rift that existed – exists – between them. Sansa isn’t stupid. She and Jon’s relationship is bound to stagnate after too long if they don’t do something about this hurt.

But Sansa is scared to ruin the delicate balance they’ve reached. Oh she knows she deserves better; furthermore she _didn’t_ deserve the ridicule and harassment she got from Daenerys and her advisors, or from Jon himself. But, if nothing else, Sansa knows Jon loves her in some way. She knows he did what he did to protect the North, to protect her.

But what if she can’t forgive him? What if, at the end of the day, his explanation isn’t enough? Her heart is already so broken, so fragile, and while she can’t pursue any development of their relationship without talking about their past, she could grow to be happy with just this if it at least meant that he would stay in Winterfell.

“Jon explained to me why you can’t forgive him for what he did,” Arya says quietly, a stark contrast to the brash way she’d entered. “And I just . . . I wanted to say that I understand.”

Sansa blinks, her lips parting. She hadn’t expected that. She’s not sure what she _did_ expect, but it wasn’t this. “Oh.”

“And I - . . .” Arya stops, her brow furrowing in frustration, obviously unable to word what it is she wants to say.

“You can say what you’re thinking,” Sansa permits.

“I suppose I just want to know how much you’ve actually talked to him about it,” Arya says finally.

Sansa worries her bottom lip with her teeth, wondering how much to tell Arya. It’s not that Arya doesn’t deserve to know, because she does, Sansa is just not sure how much help she’ll be.

“Not much,” Sansa says, then pauses. Arya waits, to see if she’ll speak more. Sansa sighs heavily. “We talked a little bit when he first got back to Winterfell. After . . . well, after. He told me why he decided to manipulate Daenerys, and he told me that everything he said and did while she was North, while he was South, was to protect us.”

“Jon explained to me why that’s not enough,” Arya replies after a pause. “And I want you to know that I understand why it might never be.”

“Okay,” Sansa says cautiously.

“And I want to say that I’m not trying to guilt you,” Arya rushes, “because you really do have legitimate reasons to be unable to forgive him, okay.”

Sansa feels extremely wary now, but she nods anyway.

“Alright, then, I just want to say that . . . I think you should think about this from his perspective.” Sansa lips twitch as Arya continues. “It just that, Sansa, I can’t imagine that you would have done anything different, if you were in his position.”

It’s not that simple, as nothing ever is, but that doesn’t mean that Arya is wrong.

Sansa looks away from her sisters knowing gaze as she whispers, “I wouldn’t have.”

 

* * *

 

 

Jon comes to her bedchambers later than usual that night, and Sansa thinks it must be because of whatever conversation he had with Arya today.

But he still comes, though his knock is softer than usual. She opens the door, and he’s standing hesitantly in the corridor as if he can’t be sure that she wants him there.

“Come in,” she says softly.

She turns from him, assumes he follows, and takes her seat by the fire.

Jon closes the door slowly, like it means something different tonight, then hesitates a few moments and finally decides to bar the door.

She makes sure nothing shows her face, though she’s a little surprised.

“It’s time we talk,” Jon says, lingering by the door.

“I know.”

Jon obviously tries to hold in a sigh, but his shoulders heave with the effort.

“Come sit down,” she says, feeling unimaginably fond of him. She’s not sure why his hesitance elicits such a response, but she lets it wash over her, lets it remind her that they need to communicate openly so that she might be free to feel this all the time.

Jon does as bid, his lips pursed and brows furrowed.

“So, I -.” Jon clears his throat. “Well, you already know what happened.”

“When did you decide . . .” Sansa takes a deep, steadying breath. “When did you decide that you had to give up your crown?”

Jon answers immediately, even though just yesterday she knows if she’d asked that question he would have hesitated. “When we went north of the Wall,” he admits. “She came and saved us with her dragons. She killed so many of them, and I knew that I had to do _whatever_ it took. And she . . . well, she pledged to come North before I bent the knee.”

“I know,” Sansa replies, face turning down.

Jon flinches. “It was just that - . . . I was scared she would change her mind. Gods, the relief I felt when she pledged; but then I thought, well, what if we get back to Dragonstone and she decides it’s too much effort? What if I get her North and everyone rebels against her, and she just decides it’s not worth her time? Or, worse, no one welcomes her and she burns us all for our impertinence. I was too scared to take the chance. I might have waited to bend the knee a little longer, might have tried to play the advantage of her having seen the army of the dead, but she told me she’d come North. I had to make sure she’d _stay_ North and not hurt anyone.”

“You were in over your head,” Sansa replies shortly, because it’s true. A little brutal, but true.

“I was,” he agrees readily, “but then I was there and I didn’t have a choice, Sansa. Yes, I should have listened to you, but I didn’t, so I had to do what I could.”

“And then you got here and realized that you couldn’t hold it all together like you thought you could?”

He balks again, his face almost paling. It stresses him, remembering this, Sansa realizes. It had taken an extreme toll on him. Sansa knows that she’s been ignoring this in favour of her own wounded feelings. It’s much easier to protect yourself from hurt than to protect others.

He licks his lips. “I had anticipated a pushback from the North,” he says slowly. “I warned her of it. But even though I knew what she was I hadn’t anticipated how . . . offended she would really be. Gods, the amount of times I had to calm her down after someone said something she disagreed with, whenever someone dared to contradict her . . . fuck, Sansa, you have no idea how many times she threatened _you_.”

She’s not surprised by the revelation, not really, as Sansa clearly remembers that day she’d sat in the library with Daenerys and Sansa had demanded to know what would happen to the North; the _anger_ on Daenerys face then may not have inspired fear in her at the time, but that evening she’d sat in her chambers and stared at her fire and wondered what it felt like to die of dragonfire.

“How many?” Sansa asks softly.

Jon looks surprised that she would ask, then his face clouds over. “How many times did she say to my face that if I didn’t do something about your behavior then she would? Twice. _Twice_ she threatened your life explicitly. How many times did I get the feeling that she wanted to kill you?”

He rolls his eyes towards the ceiling, and hesitates.

Sansa wonders when those times were. What did she do to Daenerys? What had she said? What had she been blissfully ignorantly doing while Jon stood opposite Daenerys as the Queen threatened to kill her? As Jon had to say and do whatever was necessary to keep her alive?

“Tell me.”

He looks back at her. “At least twice _a day_.”

Sansa’s breath hitches sharply. She holds in her inhale until her panic bleeds out with the reminder that Daenerys is dead, and then exhales loudly.

“Is that why you took my power away?” Sansa asks eventually. “Is that why you belittled me in my own home?”

Jon closes his eyes, face screwed with regret. He doesn’t answer, but Sansa already knows.

Sansa wonders why Jon diminishing a threat on her life isn’t enough to make her forgive him for taking her agency away.

 _It means more to me,_ Sansa thinks numbly, _to be in control of my body than to save it._

“Do you know how that made me feel, Jon?” Sansa asks him, voice flat with emotion she refuses to show.

“I - . . .”

“You made me feel small,” Sansa says, her eyes blurred despite her best efforts. “You – you gave me hope, you made me believe in myself, gods Jon, you gave me Winterfell. And just as I was getting comfortable, you took it all away again. You made me feel like your love was a commodity that I was undeserving of. That you only gave all that to me in the first place because there was no one else. And as soon as there was a better option – not even a better option, a different option – you decided that I was unworthy.

“Why do you get to decide that? Why did I let you have that power over me?”

Jon visibly flounders. There’s nothing he can say, anyway.

But Sansa has nothing else to say, either. They fall into a tense silence, and Sansa refuses to fill it with the sound of her tears.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to have blind faith in me,” Jon finally whispers. “I wish I’d told you the truth. I feared . . . I feared what she would do, if she ever got any idea that I’d not been forthcoming.”

Sansa sighs, then purses her lips. “I know,” she says, not to give him an out, but because it’s true.

“I just . . . I won’t pretend to know what could have happened, if I’d confessed to you,” Jon says. “Whether everything would have changed, or maybe it would have stayed exactly the same. But I wouldn’t ever, I _won’t_ ever, compromise your safety for anything, Sansa. Even if it meant that you hated me.”

Sansa shakes her head. “I don’t hate you, Jon.”

“Even if I told you that I’d planned to take the secret to my grave?” he challenges. “If things hadn’t gone that way they did . . . if I’d had to marry her . . . I would never have told you the truth. I likely would never have seen you again. When I say I wish I told you the truth, I’m not lying; but I wish it only because I wish I could have spared you that feeling of betrayal. I wish that I hadn’t made you feel like I don’t love you. But if I had gone through with my original plan, if I had lived down there with her in constant fear that she would kill you – I would never have told you. I would _never_ have put you in that kind of danger.”

Sansa stands and turns away from him completely. She . . . she wishes she didn’t know that. She appreciates his honestly, and she can understand where he’s coming from, it perhaps even makes sense. But gods she wishes that she’d known. She just _does._ No matter that his argument makes sense, because she can’t really know either how it would have gone if she had known, no matter that he had altruistic reasons, no matter than he thought that it was the best way to protect not just her, but the North, but the entirety of Westeros.

She just wishes he’d trusted her to know.

It’s the same thing she imagines her Mother would feel, if she’d lived to find out the truth.

Sansa clears her throat, but she doesn’t turn back to him. “I . . . I think that Father made the right choice, not telling anyone the truth about you.”

Jon intakes sharply behind her. Sansa lets her eyes close, but pushes on.

“Logically, he did,” she says. “You would have been in so much danger from King Robert. And he loved Lyanna so much, he loved _you_ so much, that he let himself be slandered, he let Mother believe he had betrayed her, he let you . . . he brought you up in an environment less than you deserved, because he knew that sacrificing all of that was the only way to keep you safe. The only way to _ensure,_ completely, that you wouldn’t be murdered just because your father is a Targaryen.”

“Sansa . . .”

She turns back to him.

“Mother used to tell me that my birth was special to her,” she says softly. “Because I was the first child they had together after he came home with you. I was a manifestation of the choice she made to forgive Father. And she forgave him without any of the explanation that you’ve given me.”

He’s trying to hide his hope, she can see; his eyes are wide, his shoulders pinched together, his hands clasped around the arms rest tightly.

She puts him out of his misery.

“I forgive you, Jon.”

He slumps forward, elbows braced against his knees, palms digging into his eyes.

Sansa stays where she’s standing, unsure.

Jon lifts his head. “I would have understood, if you hadn’t.”

She gives him a small smile. “I know.”

Jon stands abruptly, striding over to her. His hands cups her face between his hands, eyes gazing over her features, his expression open and adoring.

Sansa gasps sharply, and her hands instinctively come up to his waist. Her fingers clench in the leather of his jerkin as her hands start to tremble.

“Considering we’re being honest tonight,” Jon murmurs, fingers sweeping against her cheekbones, tucking one side of her hair behind her ear, “there’s something else I want to tell you.”

Sansa can’t believe that she thought that Arya was _wrong._ She can’t believe that she ever thought he didn’t love her. It is so clear on his face right now, his eyes soft, his lips parted in rapture, and there is no word for it other than sheer adoration.

She doesn’t even need to him say it.

Sansa presses forward, capturing his lips. His hands slip down to her neck as she coaxes his mouth open with her own, then slide further down to her waist as his tongue touches hers.

She reaches up to tangle her hands in his hair, tugging his body close to hers until they’re pressed together tightly. Sansa runs her tongue over Jon’s bottom lip; he groans lowly in response, arms winding tighter around her waist.

The air fills with the sound of sharp gasps and shuddering breaths; Sansa can’t help but push Jon back towards her bed, her hands firm on his shoulders as she guides him backwards, her lips still tenderly moving with his.

Jon’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he sinks down on to it. He breaks from her, hands still twisting in her skirts, his eyes tracing the lines that his fingers follow.

He pants heavily, as does she, and then his gaze meets hers; it’s soft, and tender, and affectionate in a way that she’s never seen directed at her before. Sansa leans down to take his lips with hers again, slowly moving them over his, feeling their shape, the fullness of his bottom lip; she presses her teeth into it, slowly, then leans back. He groans as she lets his lip go.

“I suppose that means you already knew that I’m in love with you?”

Sansa inhales sharply as she straightens from him, hands lingering on his shoulders as her eyes widen.

“In love?” she whispers in wonder, tilting her head down at him.

His mouth drops into a confused little _o,_ brows pulling together and up. “You . . . didn’t . . . know that?”

Well it’s just she . . . no, she didn’t think that. Certainly she knew his feelings weren’t familial, that they were romantic in nature, but . . . she’d lost hope of love. It feels too good to be true.

“We can pretend I didn’t say that.”

Sansa gasps, then presses forward hastily to kiss him fiercely. He grunts in surprise, though kisses her back, if with a little more hesitation.

“No,” she says against his lips, “no, no, no, I don’t want to pretend. I just . . . was surprised. I’d come to think that no one could love me.”

Jon shakes his head. “No, my darling,” he whispers, cupping her jaw, fingertips light against in her cheek, as if she is something so precious to him he’s scared to break it, “I do. I love you.”

“Oh, Jon.” Her adoring sigh against him is swallowed by his kiss. “I love you, too. Gods, I love you so much.”

This time it’s he that gasps in surprise. “Really?”

His voice cracks half way through the word, so much hope and desperation in his tone and on his face that Sansa hurriedly presses herself closer to him by propping her knees up on the bed, either side him, straddling his thighs.

She wraps an arm around his shoulders, resting her other hand against his face as she looks down at him.

“Jon,” she says seriously, and she knows her eyes are tearing up, and his are too, “I’m so sorry that my Mother couldn’t bring herself to look at you. I’m so sorry for the way I treated you when we were younger. I’m so sorry that Ygritte died. I’m so sorry that your brothers killed you. I’m so godsdamned sorry that you felt you had no other choice than to pretend to love Daenerys, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see the truth of it. Jon, I am _so_ sorry that your life has taught you that you don’t belong, that you are unworthy of being loved.”

“Sansa –“

“No, listen, listen.”

He nods slightly, his mouth closing. Sansa closes her eyes, nuzzles her nose against his temple, unable to stop a couple of tears from slipping.

Against his cheek, she says, “I know that life has never given you reason to believe that you are loved, that you are cherished, but please, listen to me, believe me when I say that I _adore_ you. I am - . . . gods, Jon, I am _so_ in love with you.”

Sansa can taste Jon’s tears, too.

His fingers dig into her waist as he pants heavily against her. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Oh, my beautiful Jon,” Sansa sighs. “you might actually be the only person in all of Westeros who does.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Arya barges into Sansa’s solar the following night, Bran and Gendry following closely behind, Sansa and Jon may or may not be in the midst of a, erm, _passionate embrace._

By that, of course, Sansa means that Jon’s hands are caught in Sansa’s hair as she’s halfway through unlacing his jerkin, each breathing hard through their rough kisses.

They spring apart as the door slams open. Sansa attempts to smooth back her hair while Jon hurriedly redoes the laces on his leather.

Arya looks between them, a scowl on her face. “Am I going to have to start knocking?” she demands.

Sansa and Jon look at each other, faces red, then burst into laughter. At the same time, they both reply.

“ _Yes.”_


End file.
